Drama ensues.

---

Another person in our house has fallen ill. This morning we went to learn to dance salsa, only to have Mona begin to feel sick.

I actually learned some, but I still feel stupid trying to dance. Essentially every Guatemalan possesses hidden dancing capabilities-then you ask if they can dance, and they say "No, no..." then five seconds later proceed to engage in crazy salsa dancing splendor.

So yes. A lot of our group actually picked up the steps quite quickly and were salsa-ing about the room in glee while I just kind of stared in disbelief.

Last night we convinced our host brother, Christian, that it would be SO FUN if he brought four gringas to a discotequeuejdndnds tonight. There's no salsa, luckily, and from what I understand it's a lot of electronica.

He's really shy, we have to plead with him to make him speak, English OR Spanish. He studies English in his school, and therefore, like us with spanish, can mostly understand everything we say in English, just not answer back that well. Of course, I didn't realize this...so now we have to be careful what we say.

Mostly we just sit around and talk about stupid stuff and he laughs at us.

Yesterday we went to the coolest cemetary of my life. All of the bodies are in colourful boxes stacked on top of each other, forming walls of death. We have to be careful, though, because the cemetary is the local gang hangout and at night they go there to do drugs, gamble, and cut heads off of statues.
After that, we tried to find mangoes because Ally had the strange urge to buy one .

At the moment there is no water in the city and it is simply splendid, as I'm sure you can imagine.

What else...oh yes, we get SO much exercise walking between the school and our house. We are seriously beasts trekking up those streets everyday. You wont recognize us when we return because we will be ripped.

I've also become quite adept at playing the human version of frogger--I can dodge cars like nobody's business.

So anyway. STUFF. How is life where you can flush the paper after you use it?

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Comments

[A square.]

Who leads a quadrilateral existance.
Dear Kelsey: I want your life. Love, me.

[la bamba mama]

se necesita una poca de gracia
Para bailar la salsa se necesita una poca de gracia, y otra cosita, arriba, arriba. Hola mi hija. Lo siento que tu quieres bailar y no puedes. I'm also sorry to hear your friends are not feeling well and that you are forced to live a life of grime. Please stay away from cemetary gangs and the like. I'm so happy you are keeping fit--it'll make coming back to Tae Kwon Do so easy--don't forget to practice every form every day! And do you remember those things called sidewalks? Cars are allergic to them, so make friend with them as soon as possible. Oh yes, by the way, if you e-mailed your address to la bamba mama the "mail fairy" might be persuaded to visit you.

[anonymous]

...interesting. I love how there's no water, but the internets are working. Anyways, I think you should find a large, threatening animal native to Guatemala, slay it, and bring it back to me as a birthday gift. Yeah. Also, you should infiltrate the gangs, and destroy them from the inside out, kiss kiss, bang bang style. Have fun.

[Su(per)padre]

Fotografias
Dear greasy, ripped, salsa-free daughter, We miss you! I hope you're taking photos -- I'd like to see greasy girls dancing, stacked death boxes, the angel of death with a head, dramatic car-dodging, and how you cope with not being able to flush...uh....wait a minute. On second thought, it's okay if you don't take photos. Dad

[Laurel-Bug]

my life
my life has been absolutely amazing due to the somewhat-recent aquisition of the most amazing boyfriend in the universe (this saturday is our 1 month). Even I was suprised by how fast things got so serious with us. Umm...but yes, its also lonely because he's been gone at camps and the like pretty much all summer. And there is a general lack of Kelsey-ness which has been painful for the majority of the school year and still is in need of relief.